sessed
the grand fiefs of the crown, and, in particular, the Dukes of Burgundy
and Bretagne, had come to wear their feudal bonds so lightly that they
had no scruple in lifting the standard against their liege and sovereign
lord, the King of France, on the slightest pretence. When at peace, they
reigned as absolute princes in their own provinces; and the House of
Burgundy, possessed of the district so called, together with the fairest
and richest part of Flanders, was itself so wealthy, and so powerful, as
to yield nothing to the crown, either in splendour or in strength.

In imitation of the grand feudatories, each inferior vassal of the crown
assumed as much independence as his distance from the sovereign power,
the extent of his fief, or the strength of his chateau enabled him to
maintain; and these petty tyrants, no longer amenable to the exercise
of the law, perpetrated with impunity the wildest excesses of fantastic
oppression and cruelty. In Auvergne alone, a report was made of more
than three hundred of these independent nobles, to whom incest, murder,
and rapine were the most ordinary and familiar actions.

Besides these evils, another, springing out of the long continued wars
betwixt the French and English, added no small misery to this distracted
kingdom. Numerous bodies of soldiers, collected into bands, under
officers chosen by themselves, from among the bravest and most
successful adventurers, had been formed in various parts of France out
of the refuse of all other countries. These hireling combatants sold
their swords for a time to the best bidder; and, when such service was
not to be had, they made war on their own account, seizing castles
and towers, which they used as the places of their retreat, making
prisoners, and ransoming them, exacting tribute from the open villages
and the country around them--and acquiring, by every species of rapine,
the appropriate epithets of Tondeurs and Ecorcheurs, that is, Clippers
and Flayers.

In the midst of the horrors and miseries arising from so distracted a
state of public affairs, reckless and profuse expense distinguished the
courts of the lesser nobles, as well as of the superior princes; and
their dependents, in imitation, expended in rude but magnificent display
the wealth which they extorted from the people. A tone of romantic and
chivalrous gallantry (which, however, was often disgraced by unbounded
license) characterized the intercourse between the sexes